That Old Debate- "plane" or "pilot"?

[Animal]

That was a beautiful song, Shane.

[Vulcan]

B'n'Z the La7 dweeb til he runs out of fuel and has to land.

Then vulch him OTR.



I have film of a really good example of this if anyone wants it.

Originally posted by Urchin
I'll toss out these examples.  Surely someone in the FDBs can point out how to win these matchups.  All fights are co-alt, head-on merges.  

You are in a 190D9, enemy is in a La7.  What do you do to win this fight?

[Urchin]

Co-alt, head on merges.  

Not starting out with a speed and alt advantage for either plane.

[Fatty]

Okay, I'll nibble.  Though I missed the talk of our greatness, if I recall right virtual experten is what we were mocking, not claiming.

There is no answer of course, unless you can tell me every opponent is going to do the exact same thing after merge (I'd take the HO on any of those if the mood struck me, too.  If I'm lucky they'll flip out about it).

I can tell you short of the 110 (in which case I most certainly would headon) they are not engagements I would be afraid of, even if it ended in tight turning on the deck.  But therein lies the difference, if it doesn't work out I'm not going to lose it.  I would just go back again.

[DJ111]

I'd have to say it's... mostly the pilot , b/c i love upping a 205 or hurri1 and finding a N1K or spit in a furball, and blasting him out of the sky and seeing You Shot Down 176432jr        He was in better plane , and he was fighting a inferior plane but with a good <:D> pilot.



 Anyone can up a N1K and fly into a fight and kill an enemy with 2-3 pings and look and , oh theres another boom  another and so on and so on. But with a few planes you cant just point your guns at someone and ping them 2-3 times and they burst into flames , you have to stay with them and keep plucking away with the pea-shooters and keep your SA the whole time.

[Octavius]

Although the machine certainly may not hurt, I believe its the pilot.  

Hortlund, Saw, myself, and some others (I can't remember who else or if saw and hort were even there!) were practising in the DA a while back for the BoB scenerio.  Towards the end of our session we became bored.  We rolled two 262s against two 09Es.  Heh, embarrassingly, the 262s lost.  Hehe, we made a bet before we engaged... the loser had to announce something shocking on ch1 in the MA with the losing wingie.  Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I believe Saw and I prefer to fly naked, holding hands, in a two-seat P-51.... according to the bet

Its the pilot... and... not-so-much the machine.

[SOB]

Urchin, please don't lump all the FDBs together.  Fatty & Animal don't speak for all of us.  They're upitty rabblerousers who should be ignored.  Hopefully they'll learn their place behind the truly great pile-its with skilz in this game played over the intardnet.  Perhaps one day (with lots of diligence and patience), they'll change their ways, maybe even be fit to follow in your footsteps or dare I say...wear your underwear as they stumble around in a half-nekkid drunken stupor.  You sir, are a hero to aspiring little tardlings like me, and I you.  Bravo, carry on the discussion.


SOB

[Urchin]

Originally posted by Fatty
Okay, I'll nibble.  Though I missed the talk of our greatness, if I recall right virtual experten is what we were mocking, not claiming.

There is no answer of course, unless you can tell me every opponent is going to do the exact same thing after merge (I'd take the HO on any of those if the mood struck me, too.  If I'm lucky they'll flip out about it).

I can tell you short of the 110 (in which case I most certainly would headon) they are not engagements I would be afraid of, even if it ended in tight turning on the deck.  But therein lies the difference, if it doesn't work out I'm not going to lose it.  I would just go back again.

Ok, so you try for the head-on if you are in a 110 and your opponent is in a P-51.  Most people can duck a head-on, they aren't to difficult to avoid.  Besides, the pilot in the P-51 should know that he should be able to avoid a head on and still kill you easily, because he is... well.. I guess he is just that much better a pilot that you are.  

But there is no advice you could give to our newer players regarding some general tactics they could use?  No possible, well, I guess, advantage that ... their being a... um... inferior pilot, could give them?

You've convinced me that the planes in question have absolutely nothing to do with how a fight turns out, so please tell us what tricks you use to win all of, well.. a majority of... well.. some.. wait... a few.. of the fights listed above.  I'm literally wide-eyed with anticipation.

[Urchin]

Another thing I was hoping one of you wise and talented fellows could explain to me.  I was just taking a quick look at the 'expanded score' pages (they are really neat things you know!) and I noticed you can select 'plane' vs 'plane'.  From there (quite exciting!) you can pick "all" vs "all".  This brings up the NEATEST little page.  It has a LIST of all the planes we have, how many kills and how many deaths they have.  You can also pick a plane vs 'all', and get a complete breakdown of how the plane performed against every other plane!  So, so, amazing.  

But, I digress.  I was a little puzzled when I looked at these pages.  Armed with my newly found knowledge of exactly how little the planes in question effect a fight, I expected to find certain results when I discovered this neat 'score' page.  

I was hoping you could take some time away from rampaging and destroying all in the Main Arena (or at least talking about it), and help me understand why these things that I found are the way they are.  Is that ok?  Again, I'm bursting with anticipation, hoping to bask in the glow of your knowledge.  

Here are some puzzling things that I found:  

The 109E-4 has 156 kills, and 418 deaths.  This works out to a K/D of .3723 (I think that means it gets .3723 kills for every time that one dies, but I'm a little murky on that.  Can you clear that up to?).  Interestingly enough, the 109G-10 has 9,036 kills and 7,143 deaths.  This works out to a K/D of 1.2648.  It seems that all the talented pilots must fly the 109G-10 then, right?  Just the sucky pilots fly the 109E-4, and apparently there arent to many sucky pilots flying it, either.

Another one that I found odd.  

The C202 has 579 kills, and 889 deaths.  Thats a K/D of .6506.  The C205 has 3,482 kills, and 3,288 deaths.  Thats a K/D of 1.0587.  

That means the C205 pilots are just about twice as good as the C202 pilots, right?  Not to mention they fly a lot more.  

One last thing that really puzzles me.  I mean, this one is really troubling.  I noticed that you can check individual PLAYERS stats out with this neat page that I found.  This one 'pilot', who will remain anonymous for his own protection, has some really good scores in some planes... but bad scores in other planes.  For example -  

He had 62 kills, and 2 deaths in the 190D-9.  Thats a K/D of 31.  
But, he had 6 kills and 5 deaths in the C202!  Thats only a K/D of 1.2.  Does that mean he all of a sudden got 30 times worse, just by changing planes?  

Can you explain this to me?  I am poised at my computer, clicking the refresh button with baited breath, awaiting enlightenment.

[Raubvogel]

Originally posted by Urchin


 Does that mean he all of a sudden got 30 times worse, just by changing planes?  

No, I think this means you have way too much time on your hands. It's just a game dude.

[sling322]

Originally posted by Urchin
Most people can duck a head-on, they aren't to difficult to avoid.  

Judging by the nightly outbursts on channel 1, its painfully obvious to me that this statement is false.

[Urchin]

I've never had a problem avoiding them, and you all know I suck.  Surely the average player is far, far, far, FAR better than me at.. well, anything in any fighter.  

Still waiting for someone to enlighten me regarding my questions above.

[VOR]

Urchin it's about time someone with some solid facts brought this issue to light. Based upon the simple numerical data in the extended scores page, you are absolutely right: only the worst pilots fly the worst planes! It is, after all, the man, not the machine.

Good job researching this little number. The issue is dead and buried.

[Hooligan]

Urchin:

In my opinion the better the pilots are, the less the aircraft matters.  So I think your 60/40 70/30 is actually a sliding scale.  With reasonably competent (ie not dweeb) pilots the plane matters a great deal.  With very good pilots I think it matters much less.  Since we are already picking on Leviathn, let's continue the exercise.  My bet is that in an La7 you could BnZ Lev's SpitV with near impunity:  i.e. you could keep you speed sufficient and control your engagement parameters so that he would be very unlikely to damage you.  Of course, I doubt he would give you any useful shot either.  For you to give yourself a decent shot opportunity on him, you would have to slow down and or turn enough so that you would be in serious danger from him if you didn't kill him on your gun pass.  In short, he would force you to accept some risk in exchange for making a viable attack.  For 2 competent but not very good pilots in an la7/spitV matchup, I don't believe this is true.  The La7 could probably BnZ the spit with impunity and have a decent chance of getting a quick kill.  In almost any matchup between 2 different fighters, the "inferior" fighter will have some advantages over the better one, and very good pilots will force their opponent to play to their ride's strengths (at least somewhat).

Here is my explanation for the stats.  At any time a lot of the people flying AH are relatively new (been here less than 3 months).  Most of these newbies are simply not competent at the game.  For these people the aircraft matters a great deal.  Of the remaining players, most are competent and a small percentage are pretty good.  So only a small percentage of the pilots flying in the MA have sufficient skill so that the pilot matters more than the plane.  For the bulk of the MA players, many of which are new, the plane does matter a lot and the statistics reflect this.

Hooligan

[Innominate]

Originally posted by Urchin
Still waiting for someone to enlighten me regarding my questions above.

1. You are right.
2. You are whining.
3. The MA is the way it is, whining won't change that.
4. If you want something changed, figure out how to change it, and explain why it would work.

So far everything you've said has been what everyone already knows.  So the question is, what would you do about it?